


Off Script Confessions

by kyrieanne



Category: Lizzie Bennet Diaries
Genre: F/M, Pemberly Arc
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-04
Updated: 2013-02-04
Packaged: 2017-11-28 05:41:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,726
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/670915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kyrieanne/pseuds/kyrieanne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Description: Lizzie wants to be friends with William Darcy. She does not want to have feelings for William Darcy. Not that that is happening. Not at all. Nope.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Off Script Confessions

**Author's Note:**

> Companion fic to "Everybody Needs a Confessor" and "Confessions of Little Sisters," both archived here on AO3. Diverts from Canon Post-Episode 82

When Lizzie is young she puts on elaborate plays in her backyard. 

 

She co-opts Charlotte and her sisters. They weave twinkle lights through the balusters on the deck and Jane uses their mother’s third best sheet to paint a backdrop. They reenact all of the Disney movies and after the Bennet’s buy their first computer when Lizzie is ten she starts writing her own scripts. She prints them out and looks at the words on the page. They are her words. It is like the dresses Jane sews or Lydia’s pony. They are Lizzie’s and only hers. The plays bring what is in her head to life. 

 

It is frustrating because Lydia never stays on script. She is always dropping her own words into her lines and Lizzie gets so mad because Lydia just doesn’t get it…she is playing a character and not herself. No character Lizzie created would ever talk like that. 

 

“But I like me so much better Lizzie,” Lydia pouts. She puffs her cheeks out and scowls until Jane begs Lizzie to just let Lydia do it her way. 

 

“But that’s not in the script,” Lizzie says stubbornly, “You have to stick to what’s in the script.” 

 

She never understands how Lydia always gets her way. She hates the tantrums and the falsetto energy levels that her sister maintains. No one is that loud; no one shrieks that much. It is not natural. Lydia is putting on a show just to get attention. How does no one else see this but Lizzie? 

 

Then in Lizzie’s senior year of high school she is once again in a production. Except this one isn’t in her backyard and doesn’t include her sisters. She is playing Emily Webb in the high school production of Our Town and it is A BIG DEAL. Her mother makes it A BIG DEAL and for once Lizzie is grateful for her mother’s overreactions. She likes being A BIG DEAL even if her mother’s excitement is fueled by the delusion that Lizzie had a future as an actress in Hollywood. Actresses always marry rich, handsome single men, right? 

 

Her aunts and uncles and cousins come in from out-of-town for the weekend of shows. They fill up the house and Lizzie almost flees to Charlotte’s because nothing - except for her daughters - gets on Lizzie’s mother’s nerves more than her own sisters. Jane and Lydia are forced to sleep on Lizzie’s floor and Lizzie can’t help but want to pitch a Lydia size fit. She is the star of the show. Why should she have to share her tiny room with her two sisters? 

 

After a stunning opening night, Lizzie stumbles in from the cast party. She is a little buzzed. She picks quietly past her parent’s bedroom and slips into her own room. 

 

“Did you make out with Adam Horowitz cause he was totally macking on you the entire play!” Lydia is nothing but a voice in the dark room. 

 

“Shhhhh! You’re going to wake everyone up.” 

 

Lydia turns on Lizzie’s bedside lamp, “But I was totally right about Adam Horowitz, right? Macking all the way.” 

 

“I don’t think that is a thing, Lydia,” Lizzie picks past Jane, who sleeps soundly on the blow up mattress on Lizzie’s floor. In her tipsy state Lizzie realizes her older sister even smiles in her sleep and Lizzie can’t help it she rolls her eyes. 

 

But Lydia is propped up quite comfortably in Lizzie’s twin bed with a smirk and raised eyebrows, “It totally is.” 

 

“Get out of my bed!” Lizzie hisses. She starts stripping off her blouse and skirt, which smell of beer from when Adam Horowitz spilled it on her. She buries them at the bottom of her hamper, “And no. I did not make out with Adam. We’re just friends.” 

 

Lydia rolls her eyes, “Totes lame sis. Dude is dying to play some tonsil hockey.”

 

Lizzie can feel the blush rising in her neck. She pulls on a tank top and pajama pants and ignores her sister. When Lydia doesn’t move from her spot in Lizzie’s bed, Lizzie pushes her over and settles into the tiny space between Lydia and her desk. She flips off the lamp Lydia turned on. 

 

“We’re just friends,” Lizzie picks at her pillowcase, “That’s it.” 

 

She can almost hear Lydia roll her eyes. She settles down next to Lizzie and the two sisters lie pressed back to back in the tiny bed. The dark lapses between them and maybe it is Lizzie’s tipsy state but she asks Lydia, “Did he really look like he wanted to mack on me?” She cringes even as she says it. 

 

Lydia’s feet pedal under the blankets, “YES! Totally. I don’t know why you’re surprised when guys want to go for your Lizzie. You’re not that lame for a nerd,” her sister turns onto her back and Lizzie arches her neck to look over her shoulder. 

 

She catches Lydia’s profile in the streetlight that filters into her bedroom. Lydia’s hand finds Lizzie’s and gives it a squeeze, “You’re problem is you’re afraid to go off script. Gotta improvise once in a while.” 

 

***

 

Lizzie wants to be friends with William Darcy. She does not want to have feelings for William Darcy. Not that that is happening. Not at all. Nope. 

 

The Saturday after they have dinner he shows her his favorite used bookstores in San Francisco. They poke around the stuffed shops for hours. A few times she forgets she is with him and Darcy has to search her out. She’s always in the literature section. By the fifth shop it becomes a joke and when she laughs at his teasing his smile widens. The corners of his eyes crinkle and it stops her. The fact that it is her laughter that draws his widest, clearest smile stops her. 

 

In the end, Lizzie buys a few cheap paperbacks. Darcy, of course, buys a first edition of some French philosopher Lizzie barely recognizes. They walk out of the last shop with their purchases and Darcy asks where she would like to go next. 

 

He is standing with his hands in his pockets. He spent the morning in the office so he is in black slacks and a blue oxford button down, but the sleeves are rolled up to the elbow. The cloth bag the shop owner gave him to carry his precious first edition swings from his wrist and Lizzie touches the plastic one she was given. His dumb hipster glasses are askew and so is his hair as if he ran his fingers through it that morning in the office. He could have been working on something and not realized it, Lizzie thinks. 

 

He looks so nonchalant, so effortless, that it hits Lizzie low in the gut. Until then Darcy never looked nonchalant. If anything he looked like too much effort, all straight lines and sharp angles. Never a thing out of place. But for some reason today his shoulders slope a little, his head tilts as he looks at her, and Lizzie sees a different Darcy. It is this Darcy, she imagines, who is best friends with Bing. It is this Darcy who is the affectionate older brother Gigi is always going on about. 

 

“Lizzie,” he repeats, “where would you like to go?” 

 

He smiles a little when he says it and Lizzie opens her mouth to speak, but she can’t. This Darcy, Lizzie thinks, is reserved for a very small set of people and she is in that set of people. 

 

This was not how this was supposed to work. The script said friends. 

 

Impulse strikes Lizzie. She hands him the worn copy of Margaret Atwood short stories she just bought. 

 

“We’re going to a coffee shop and you’re reading this.” 

 

He just blinks at her. 

 

“That’s what you do when you poke around used bookstores! You buy cheap books and read them in coffee shops,” she points at his wrapped first edition, “you don’t build your french philosophy collection.” 

 

She bites her lip when she says it. She doesn’t know why it bothers her that their approaches to used bookstores is so different. Maybe because it underscores the differences between them. Maybe it is because Lizzie is proud of her bent and wrinkled copies of Chekhov and Tolstoy. Darcy might own first editions, but Lizzie’s copies are her first editions. They may be shabby and stuffed onto plywood bookshelves, but Lizzie loves them. She discovered whole worlds with those shabby books. 

 

And for no logical reason she resents the leather bound tomes that sit in Darcy’s home office. Right then, standing on the sidewalk, she resents them wildly for no reason other than that in them was the difference between her and Darcy summed up perfectly. She buys the yellowed paperbacks and he purchases a beautiful piece of philosophy, written in French and printed on thick paper with gold lettering on the cover. When you smelled the damn thing - because Lizzie always smells books - you can smell the freaking richness. 

 

“I…uh…okay,” Darcy turns the books over, “I don’t think I’ve read Atwood.” 

 

“She’s a feminist,” Lizzie juts out her chin, “an ardent one.” 

 

A muscle in Darcy’s cheek twitches, “Is this some sort of test?” 

 

“Not a test. An education. You’re a rich, white male,” Lizzie says, “You could use some good feminist literature.” 

 

“Lucky me.” 

 

*** 

 

It’s not always just them. 

 

Once a week Lizzie grabs coffee with Fitz and lunch with Gigi. Three times a week everyone piles into Darcy’s car and they go out to dinner. Gigi and Fitz are experts on the culinary scene in San Francisco. They go for up-and-coming rather than fancy places like the one Darcy took her too. Still, Lizzie finds herself counting her dollars. Two nights in a row she orders the house salad because she’s already spent way too much money on drinks and food. 

 

Two days later they all go out to this great local eatery. It is all local and organic, but when Lizzie sees the $50 per plate price tag she can’t hide the gulp she makes. She hopes no one notices and politely orders the salad again. When Gigi is in the bathroom, Darcy leans over the chair between them and asks if she wants to split an entree meal. He isn’t that hungry anyway. He doesn’t offer to pay or assume she wants him too. Her ears turn pink from the embarrassment of being caught as the one at the table with no money. She shouldn’t be embarrassed, but she can’t help but be, just a little. Darcy ducks his head and her embarrassment lessons. She remembers that he is her friend and part of being friends is being honest with one another. So she smiles and nods. He suggests the lobster and Lizzie throws her head back and laughs. 

 

Sometimes it is just them. If he isn’t in meetings, Darcy brings lunch up from the dining hall and they eat in her office out of plastic containers balanced on their knees. It is these conversations that build up in Lizzie’s head. They fill in the details about Darcy. They supply inside jokes. They are easy and ordinary. It is these conversations that make Lizzie really feel like Darcy’s friend. 

 

They argue about content cultivation on Youtube and the influence of professional corporations like Pemberley have compared to the kid vlogging from his bedroom. Lizzie is surprised to find Darcy the most ardent defender of the need for the kid in his bedroom 

 

“It is romantic when you think about it,” he says, “Natural storytellers like you will always find a way to tell their story. I think the ideal situation is for the best of you to find a larger platform like Pemberley in which to tell your stories. But everyone has to start somewhere.” 

 

There is a two-day, surprisingly intense discussion about comic book movie adaptations. Darcy, it turns out, considers himself a comic book connoisseur. He is outraged that Lizzie was kind of meh toward Joss Whedon’s The Avengers. 

 

“It isn’t my cup of tea,” she shrugs and steals a corner of his chocolate chip cookie. She’s converted him to their deliciousness and he always brings two for an after-lunch dessert and she always eats at least half of his in addition to her own. Lizzie says, “How many times can you watch a over-grown boy in spandex save the world from yet-again near annihilation?”

 

“How can you not love that movie though?” Darcy holds out his hands. Lizzie bites her lip at his fervency. He takes a deep breath, “Yes, there are bad adaptations, but Whedon is taking on the myth of the hero itself. He’s complicating it and getting into the psychological world of what heroism really means.” 

 

“And from all those movies we learn that it is about getting the girl.” 

 

He scoots to the edge of his chair so their knees are just a few inches apart, “No, you’re willfully misinterpreting the whole point,” he tips an eyebrow and Lizzie says nothing. Darcy leans his elbows on his knees and looks directly at Lizzie, “To lay down your life for you friends - that is what true heroism is. That is the point.” 

 

An odd silence settles between them and Lizzie’s throat tightens. She isn’t exactly sure why. She licks her lips, “Your life? That’s a pretty high standard for friendship.” 

 

It is meant as a joke, but Darcy doesn’t take it as such. He sits straight up and smooths his tie, “The repercussions are higher in a superhero, but the idea still translates to real life. Sacrifice is a real thing.” He shakes his head, “I know people find me old-fashioned and formal, but for me virtues like sacrifice and personal honor matter.” 

 

“I know,” Lizzie says quietly. 

 

Darcy looks away, “I think that is why your response to my confession at Collins and Collins was a game changer for me.” 

 

She shifts uncomfortably because she doesn’t want to go there. It is off script. They are trying to rewrite their history; they are trying to be friends. Lizzie doesn’t want to return to those awful moments because they are just so painful. Now it wasn’t that she rejected William Darcy, robot Newsie. Now, when she remembered, she had rejected Darcy, her friend. 

 

But he keeps talking - “Your rejection was one thing, but the way you loathed me I just couldn’t handle. It was like looking in the mirror and not seeing your own reflection. I respected you and for someone I respected to so fundamentally revile me meant I had to look inward. I had failed somewhere and since then I have been working on seeing from other people’s points of view. My personal honor demanded it.” 

 

She doesn’t know what to do or to say. Darcy looks up now and he offers a small smile. 

 

“Will...” 

 

“I’m trying to say thank you.” He fists his hands on his knees. Lizzie wants to grab them, but she doesn’t know how. She isn’t sure what is happening, “I’m trying to say thank you. Nothing else.” 

 

He looks down again and this time he sees the corner of her plaid costume shirt sticking out of the tote bag she kept everything in. He tugs it out, balls it in his hands, and after a moment hands it to her. 

 

“I don’t get it,” she takes the shirt. 

 

“I’ve made you uncomfortable and that wasn’t my intent,” he says, “So let’s pretend I said that as costume!Darcy and you heard it as costume!Lizzie.”

 

But now the shirt doesn’t feel like a safe place. She doesn’t want to slip it on her shoulders so she can feel free to say anything to him. Now that she is off script she feels like she can say her own words. They are bunched up in her throat, but she wants to say them. Any other voice would be inauthentic. Lizzie wants to be honest with herself and with Darcy even if being honest scares her. She wonders if this is what Lydia meant all those years ago about liking herself so much better. 

 

She drops the shirt on her desk and with a long breath says it, “Will, doyouwanttogooutwithmetonight?” 

 

But she never gets an answer because then her phone rings.

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Note: I know on the show Lizzie would never ask Darcy out by the end of the Pemberley arc but it fit here. So, thus ends my little Confessions arc. If you've enjoyed these, please let me know!


End file.
